Collection of scientific papers

State Inspection for Control and Supervision of technical conditions and safety

Written by Erkin Turdibaev

Thursday, 05 November 2009

State Inspection for Control and Supervision of technical conditions and safety of large and critical water resources projects under the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Uzbekistan.

Ensuring the safety and a need for legal regulation of issues related to safety of hydraulic structures come from large-scale socio-economic consequences of emergencies.

One of the most important and fundamental issues is the identification of trends in state regulation of relations in the field of dam safety. During breaks of dams with the risk of large-scale socio-economic consequences, legal conflicts arise inevitably and can be resolved only based on state laws and the accompanying regulations due to significant extent of damage caused by the accident.

In 1999, the Law of the Republic of Uzbekistan "On safety of hydraulic structures" was enacted.

The main purpose of this law is to protect life, health and property of citizens, as well as property of companies, to prevent the destruction of buildings and structures, soil erosion, dangerous changes in groundwater levels and other damages caused by accidents in waterworks. Therefore, the law applies to all waterworks, which accidents may create emergency situations accompanied by the threat to life and health, the disturbance of their conditions of work and life.

The specially authorized body exercising state supervision over safety of hydraulic structures is the State Inspection for Control and Supervision of technical conditions and safety of large and very important water projects under the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Uzbekistan - "Gosvodkhoznadzor”.

The main functions of the state supervision authority, arising from the powers vested to them, can be summarized as follows:

• organize the development and approval of departmental normative, legal and regulatory and technical documents, participate in drafting the legislation and regulatory instruments in the field of hydraulic structure safety; • coordinate the development and implementation of programs to ensure safety of hydraulic structures; • organize supervision over observance of norms and rules of safe operation of hydraulic structures by operating organizations, as well as over fulfillment of license conditions for the design, construction and operation of waterworks, relating to the subjects at risk; • develop and maintain a register of hydraulic structures; • organize the preparation of declarations of safe waterworks and public examination of declarations; • organize inspections of hydraulic structures and of their compliance to the declarations of safety; • implement field observations and diagnostics of technical conditions of hydraulic structures; • prepare proposals to the Government of the Republic of Uzbekistan regarding restriction or prohibition of activities having adverse effects on the safety of hydraulic structures, relating to subjects at risk; • training and certify inspectors of state supervision, evaluate the staff of operating organizations responsible for the safe operation of hydraulic structures.

To address the most important issues of safe and reliable operation of large water facilities and issue recommendations for urgent reconstruction and upgrading of waterworks for their stable and secure work with Gosvodkhoznadzor, an expert council was established from among leading experts in the field of design, construction and operation of large hydraulic and other engineering structures.

The law grants broad powers to the Public Supervision Authority - up to making decisions to discontinue operation of unsafe buildings and destruct or reconstruct them, terminate licenses and permits for operation of hydraulic structures relating to the subjects at risk.

In accordance with the approved by the Cabinet of Ministers list, the objects under the control of the State Inspection "Gosvodkhoznadzor" include 273 large and very important water resources projects of I, II, III classes, of which 54 reservoirs, 35 pump stations, 29 hydropower stations, bank protection and channel-regulation structures on 7 rivers and sais, with a total length of 2312.2 km, 61 main canals, 63 hydroschemes and 24 main collectors.

At the same time, it should be noted that an attempt to achieve the goal within one country to ensure safe and reliable operation of dams is not sufficiently effective, given their locations. Many dams and other large hydraulic structures are located on transboundary watercourses. Thus, the attempts of each country to solve their issues by their own will not provide desired results in full and, respectively, the guarantees of reliable and safe operation of dams and other hydraulic structures.

During the period of its activity, the State Inspection "Gosvodkhoznadzor” has accumulated not only relevant experience, but also identified issues that require further refinement and development, which can be proposed as the start of making their own national models of the involved parties and possible areas of cooperation among the Central Asian countries in ensuring safe operation of hydraulic structures.